Dateline Mole Caught at DefCon with Hidden Camera

Originally posted by ClintK
[I have to question how many of the smug, judgemental people on this thread, who seem to be enjoying this young girl's pain and humiliation, would have done things ANY differently in the same situation.

Well, for one thing, I wouldn't wish to work for the scumbags that think having a camera is the equivalent to having a badge.

I wouldn't seek a living hounding people as they go about their innocent business, always on the look out for the next big scoop to grab the eyes of all the domesticated primates who sit in front of the idiot box being spoon fed corporate sponsored propaganda day in day out.

"Rules on how to live, brought to you by..."

Presenting these media scum as heroes just doesn't sit well. They lie and cheat their way into places they are not wanted looking for the next meal ticket, searching for those elusive ratings, driven by nothing but their "professional" aspirations, and the greed of their network sponsors. They want to be the next big name, the next high earning anchor and they don't give a damn about any of the poor schmucks who's privacy they invade, or who's rights they stomp all over on the way to that almighty renown.

She's obviously made the choice to pursue such a lifestyle. She made the decision to walk into that kitchen, why the hell should we shed any tears when it gets too hot for her?

[edit on 5/8/07 by Implosion]

honestly i was hoping to see this girl break down crying, she deserved it and dateline deserved to get a taste of their own medicine. if she didnt get caught dateline would of put all those faces on the air portraying them as cyber terrorist and would even find a way to link them to al qeada somehow.....as crazy as that sounds. with the exception of the truly underground and occasionally corporate hired blackhat hackers, the ones at defcon are true hackers and make what computer technology we have possible. sure they may reverse engineer propriety software and exploit computers in general but thats how you push the technology further and see what else you can do with it. these are the very guys we'll be looking to if this internet2 with full government regulation ever comes into play. dateline showed they're true colors and what their agenda is, its amazing...even the people from fbi, cia, and dod who attend defcon show more respect for the people than dateline did.

She's obviously made the choice to pursue such a lifestyle. She made the decision to walk into that kitchen.

I was right. You definitely DON'T know what it's like to pursue a career in broadcast journalism.

In the first place, it isn't a "lifestyle." It's a profession. It might not be one that appeals to you and that, perhaps, is why you're so dismissive of this girl's situation. It's pretty easy to dismiss somebody else's dream, especially when you've oversimplified them.

In the second place, the idea that you can be very choosey about job opportunities when you're starting out in this profession is, frankly, funny. Some people never even get their foot in the door despite years of trying. And we're talking about people who have college degrees in journalism and broadcasting.

I wouldn't seek a living hounding people as they go about their innocent business.

Look, I don't care much for Dateline and I've already said so in a previous post. But let's get one thing straight: they do not hound people going about INNOCENT business. Child molesters are not going about "innocent" business. A hacker who puts a spambot on my computer is not going about "innocent" business. And Dateline was not at DefCon to go after ANY hacker. They wanted to catch the ones who bragged about doing criminal acts.

And that's why this girl was there. It was THAT simple. You seem to WANT to be judgemental --so you can look down on somebody-- and as a result you're blowing this thing way out of proportion and completely mischaracterizing a situation, and a profession, I don't think you really understand.

Originally posted by ClintK
A hacker who puts a spambot on my computer is not going about "innocent" business. And Dateline was not at DefCon to go after ANY hacker. They wanted to catch the ones who bragged about doing criminal acts.

spambots on your computer are not the work of hackers, they dont even waste they're time with that. spambots are the work of script kiddies merely just taking advantage of window's very weak security, not much skill is needed to do it. if dateline were'nt after "any" hacker then they wouldnt of sent that girl in there with a hidden camera instead of obtaining a press pass and following they're rules. its obvious she was there to film and engage in conversations to try and get them to talk openly on camera about illegal hacking/cracking. dateline's sole intention was to make a hit piece on people and a tight knit community they know absolutely nothing about.

Originally posted by crgintx
So thousands of man-hours and literally millions of everyone's tax dollars were wasted because some geekboy wanted to get his mental jollies off.

Those geekboys were doing us a favor.

I would rather have some nerd hack the system and tag the motd with "J00F B33N 0WN3D," revealing the security flaw, than have that same flaw penetrated by a Chinese cybersoldier who intends real damage.

[edit on 5-8-2007 by apc]

I'm sorry but -

HAHAHAHAHAHA

Get out of there you moron. Luckily we have people out there in the world that fight against regulation of the internet. You can't regulate it. You can't stop it. You'd be ridiculous to think so. Dateline, what a # show.

Originally posted by apc

Originally posted by crgintx
So thousands of man-hours and literally millions of everyone's tax dollars were wasted because some geekboy wanted to get his mental jollies off.

Those geekboys were doing us a favor.

I would rather have some nerd hack the system and tag the motd with "J00F B33N 0WN3D," revealing the security flaw, than have that same flaw penetrated by a Chinese cybersoldier who intends real damage.

[edit on 5-8-2007 by apc]

Where do you think about 40% of the attacks are coming from? Many of the DOS attacks are at least being routed through countries that aren't particularly friendly to the US like China. It's not just the military, either. This very forum has been hacked at least twice since I've joined last year. It's pure and simple trespassing and vandalism. How would you like it someone tagged your home or car with spray paint just after you just paid for it? It costs you, me and everyone else lost time and money. If you don't like someone's website, create your own if you think you can do better or disagree with the moderation. 99% of this hacking is motivated by petty jealousy and juvenile one -upmanship not out of any sense of cyber-altruism to protect the net and its users.

Originally posted by ClintK
You don't get a gig with a network show and then refuse to do something because you question the journalistic ethics. You're still figuring out your journalistic ethics at that point

Journalistic Ethics --- isn't that an oxymoron?

Yeah you can't help feel sorry for the poor girl getting hounded away by them. But if you listen to what they're saying, you realise they're just taking the mick and showing her what it's like to be on the receiving end of journalism.

If she wants to do that to people in the future she should at least know what it feels like.

Originally posted by crgintx
99% of this hacking is motivated by petty jealousy and juvenile one -upmanship not out of any sense of cyber-altruism to protect the net and its users.

Indeed. And it is those same petty matters that reveal the flaws and allows protection from more serious threats.

If someone easily circumvents my door lock and steals my TV, that encourages me to upgrade my locks. I would rather find out my locks are bad by losing a TV than getting shot in my sleep.

Would you rather have 40% cyberwarfare and 60% annoyance? Or 100% war?

Originally posted by ClintK
But even if you DO think it's unethical, this would not be a HUGELY unethical thing. To throw away a career over it would be almost unbelievably stupid.

I have to question how many of the smug, judgemental people on this thread, who seem to be enjoying this young girl's pain and humiliation, would have done things ANY differently in the same situation.

Unethical is unethical, in my book anyway. Right is right, and wrong is wrong. Karma hurts, and she's gotten hers. It's time to move on, I agree. But, I want to suggest that if, to become a journalist, you have to sacrifice moral and lawful intentions, that maybe journalism isn't the right line of work for anyone to be in.

You seem to be defending these journalists pretty heavily. Now, I'm not saying that what these guys and gals may have done is or is not right; all I'm trying to establish here is that what that news journalist did wasn't right. In this case, she's the one that got proverbially caught with her pants down.

Oh, and for the record, I would have turned down the job, as I have a higher moral standard than that. I'm not willing to sacrifice my morals for anyone. She did, and that tells me more about her ethics than anything else. There's no telling to what extent she will go to in the future to get her story. I only hope that in the future, she uses a bit more common sense before acting. There are rules for a reason.

TheBorg

If you're still scared of "hackers" or more importantly "m4d 1337 h4x0rz" then you should probably get off the net and go back to the 80s and re-read Neuromancer.

Al Gore did not invent this system of tubes we call the internet. It would still be locked away in academia and defense contracts if it weren't for hackers. The net started as something called DARPA/ARPA, it was a way for scientist to quickly share research and of course for "defense" people to do their dirty work. Anyway, as it turned out people still wanted to get on this proto-net after they graduated the University and so network based hacking was born.

Also, a lot of people don't know that computer viruses really started out as a game where you chose one of two memory destroying programs and waited to see which one killed the other. Eventually people wrote their own bots before they realized it might be bad if the little chunks of code got loose or were used with malicious intent as they physically destroy the memory.

The days of Mitnik whistling missile codes into payphones is over.

Defcon weekend con tickets: $35.00

T-Shirt swag stating "I'm only here because my server is down.":$16.95

Dateline's Michelle "the mole" Madigan being outed: Priceless.

"There are some things money can't buy. For everything else, there's MasterCard."

I have to agree with those who find this amusing. I understand that it was most likely not this girl's idea to go undercover at a hacker convention, but she agreed to do it. She had to know there were risks involved. I don't care how hard it is to get into a business, everyone chooses where to draw the line. Last year I quit an insurance job because I was being pressured to do illegal things. Financially it was a hard descion, but ethically it was very clear. Now, maybe this girl had intended to use personal judgement on what kind of story she would cover after she got footage, but we don't know what she was planning and the fact was that she did something dishonest. All that happened to her was that she got a bit of her own medicine. Most of the time Dateline does a good job of picking their targets to be people that most people are not going to feel sorry for. I doubt that her career is ruined over this. Hopefully she just learned, like I did, that one should pick employers very carefully.

I love the comment.. "Do you have any comment?"
This was just too great. I would have loved it though, if she had stopped and defended herself, instead of scurrying off like a little rat.
This made my night/day/morning!!!

Revenge Of The Nerds

Irony abounds.

I must confess seeing a journalist on the receiving end of the sort of shameful harassment so many journalists routinely dish out themselves is both disturbing and satisfying.

Defending what Ms. Madigan was doing while decrying her treatment seems somewhat hypocritical to me in light of how often we see journalists doing the exact same thing to others.

And for what? Lying? She lied and entered the conference under false pretenses. She broke the rules.

She hacked her way in without permission, and got caught.

If "ethical journalism" amounts to nothing more than "the end justifies the means" and a self-endowed license to lie and misrepresent oneself in the name of "truth", then the term is truly an oxymoron.

Meanwhile, characterizing the attendees en masse as criminals betrays a gross -- and false -- misconception of what DEF CON actually is.

What DEF CON actually is.

Many of its legitimate attendees are law enforcement agents (who probably wouldn't appreciate being surreptitiously filmed on the job) and security professionals, and the event welcomes ethical journalists with open arms.

I fully respect the importance of a free press and support ethical journalism, but on this day, justice was done.

While I deplore the actions of most hackers as basically trepassing, I think that things like this law in Germany go too far. If computer were guns, this would be gun control. I recognize it for what it is: fascism.




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